Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Thursday 29 May 2003 15:38, c stirling bartholomew wrote:
> on 5/29/03 1:40 PM, Dave Washburn wrote:
> > Do you have any particular languages in mind?
>
> Yes, Hebrew.
>
> Why don't you demonstrate that Hebrew has an "unmarked"  narrative clause
> order. It has been tried, unsuccessfully.

This is getting very frustrating.  One person throws the idea of 
"non-representative" into something I said, now markedness is thrust into my 
comments from somewhere; I have no idea where, since I never mentioned it.  I 
also said that the fact that the HB is mostly narrative (and that in past 
tense) is why simply counting occurrences won't tell us much, if anything.  I 
never said anything about an unmarked narrative clause order; that was your 
own creation, and you're welcome to it, but please don't put it in my mouth.

> What I am saying is that the analysis of clause order in Hebrew suffers
> from approaching the question within a marked/unmarked framework. This sort
> of thinking places unnecessary constraints on the data.

I never did this.  If you have a problem with some other grammarian who does 
that, talk to them, not to me.  I'm tired of this, so I'm out of this thread.

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur